Infusing with Hay

Food-grade meadow hay is a culinary aromatic with a profile somewhere between toasted bread crust, dried chamomile and warm grass. It is sold by specialist suppliers; look for 'culinary hay' or 'food-grade hay'. Ordinary stable hay is not safe for food use because of pesticide and dust treatments. Used well, hay carries a quiet rural-meadow note that pairs particularly with apple, cream, butter and slow-cooked root vegetables. There are two main culinary methods. Cold-smoking lightly with hay (in a stovetop smoker box or a cold-smoke generator) gives a surface aromatic to fruit, fish or dairy without cooking it; the hay should smoke gently for 20-30 minutes, not hours. Cold smoke deposits onto surfaces and will not survive long heat exposure, so use it for ingredients that are then cooked briefly or served raw. The second method is a steep-infusion: dry-toast the hay in a pan for 60-90 seconds until it smells like warm bread crust, scald it with milk, cream or melted butter, and let it steep off the heat for 20-30 minutes. The toast step is what brings out the warm cereal note; without it, the infusion can read grassy and sour. Strain promptly through a fine sieve or muslin once the time is up - over-infused hay turns bitter quickly. As a baking bed, untoasted hay can also be laid under whole fruit (apples are traditional) to perfume the flesh as it cooks; the hay is discarded afterwards. Whichever method you use, treat hay as a background note - if you can taste it unmistakably in the finished dish, you have gone too far.